Other Articles from Jackson Biko

Love is a story set among the desperate. Today we are besieged by it, hounded by it. And yet today we beat those drums of love. How can we not? How can we not play to the tunes of the heart and of the loins?

Forget that mushy claptrap already. I set out to write about love today, some mushy stuff that would make me cringe later when I re-read it. But then I thought who needs all that? What about those out there who have never known love? Wouldn’t they find that insulting, perhaps challenging? Wouldn’t that open some old wounds? Would they bleed afresh? So I decided to make it realistic and write about the thing that will keep the city moving today, today’s money maker; women.

It’s rather stating the obvious when I say Nairobi is full of women. Women who are smart, women who are tall, women who are short, women with long hair and women with dead animals on their heads (Mohawks), conceited women, big women with small smiles, women with bottomless hearts and also heartless women, women who think the sun rises from their bums, women who are sharp, witty women, women who don’t get jokes, cute women, dull women, angry women, brown women, boring women, dark women, funny women. Women. They are everywhere, one for each man.

There is even enough to share with other women. And we, as Kenyan men appreciate and love them. OK, except the ones in a Mohawk. Those ones are different.

The best part of being with a woman is meeting a woman, or when boy meets girl, if you are from that school of thought. When he looks at her and feels his stomach tighten. When she is exquisite and staggeringly gorgeous. When she smells like sunset and her eyes tell a story. When you never want to stop hearing her giggle. When she floats your boat and mystery enshroud her. And mystery is good. Mystery is very good.

But this image is misleading, deceptive even because when a man meets a woman he likes he falls for someone in his head; perfect and untainted by reality. This is before you learn that she doesn’t keep time, or her promises. This is before you learn she can’t kiss, or she wears mothers union. This is before you learn that her ex-boyfriend is a 135kgs monster who still wants her back, and also wants your head on a platter.

Every guy wants to be with a beautiful woman. It’s a supreme quest.

These are the women who stride into a room and everyone stares- including other women. Especially other women. These are women whose counter has a queue that winds around the block. Pick a number, Martin, and wait. But to tell you the truth these women are a total waste of space and time and if you dare ask why then either you are in high school, or you are a hot woman. Fortunately these are women men get tired of very quickly because the more you see a hot woman the more you see things on (not in) her that aren’t as perfect as you imagined; eyes slightly skewed, a huge vein on her neck, a nose that looks like Hosni’s…

Beauty is like a bar of soap in water. So forget this woman, she’s only a picture.

But be wary of the woman who walks into a room and you feel a sharp change in the room’s chemistry. A woman who alters the composition of the room by a simple action like pouring a drink. She isn’t strikingly beautiful, but there is something unworldly about her, something that makes the energy room gravitate towards her. She isn’t the hottest thing in the room, but she has something that a hot woman can’t buy, something that cosmetic surgery can’t fix; she is sexy.

She is sexy in the way she sips her drink or rummages through her purse.

She is sexy in the way she throws back her head when she laughs. She will stare into your eyes when you talk about stuff that she doesn’t care about, but she will also look away when you look too hard in her eyes. If you try to see her soul.

She will exude the right vulnerability, but just enough not to make her weak. She won’t need to flash her cleavage in your face or show her whole thigh to make you like her. But the fleeting patch of skin that will show when she casually crosses her legs will make you gasp. And it’s something you will not forget about in a hurry.

This kind of woman never looks at the floor when she walks. Never. And the clincher is that she is totally oblivious of her sexiness but the moment she starts thinking of herself as sexy she stops being sexy. God’s sense of humor runs deep.

Unfortunately there aren’t many sexy women around. You are more likely to meet an Elephant along Ngong road than meet a sexy woman. You will meet plenty of gorgeous women though, but what good is that? What good is another perfect chin? But this being a city of vanity you will encounter many women who think they are sexy; you will know they aren’t sexy because you will see them trying to be sexy. And you will feel a tinge of sadness for them.

Here is another thing that is tragic in this city; the fact that women no longer make you want to touch them. They no longer heighten your expectations to the touch.

And make no mistakes about that ladies, that’s a huge part of seduction for men; to meet a woman and want to touch her. That is one of the precious part in being with a woman, wanting desperately to touch her and knowing full well that she isn’t ready to be touched…at least not yet.

This means not just touching her in a sexual way, but to feel her skin and satiate your temporary insanity. To free yourself from the bondage of your own flesh. To make sure she is not invincible. These parts of seduction are subliming into the tedium that plague urban dating; women making it easy. Women not waiting to be “touched.”

Breaks my heart that when my daughter starts dating (*throw up*) she won’t experience seduction in its truest form because now we have a culture of chips funga, where seducing a woman can only happen with the help of alcohol and bend over. A culture where women throw it at you, even if you’re poor at missing.

It isn’t too much to ask women to be ladies, is is? To respect themselves. To preserve themselves. To retain their pride. To love their men, but even better to love themselves. Where is the damned violin? Berkley alumni, anyone?

To the men who read this blog, today we rummage through our worn bag of tricks for anything that can redeem us in the eyes of our women.

Today we are judged not as men, but as lovers. A whole bunch of will fail but thankfully some will triumph, and to those they will save our reputation! And to that we owe you a beer.

Today a number of women who stop by on this blog will end the day with a smile, not because they stopped by here but because they will be seduced. And some will seduce. We are all happy for you. And yet others will go home to a good book. It’s all good, as long as you love yourself more than someone loves you. Besides love lives in the unlikeliest of places and not only in the hearts of men. And so to all the women who diligently stop by here to entertain my Monday rubbish consider this my flower. Happy Valentine’s Day.